post NYCC pre Detroit Fanfare (con sketch spoiler)

New York was amazing!  Met up with a bunch of friends, had some great food and made a few more fans (I hope).  This show I took on too many sketches, I'm still trying to finish them up.  I do have a bunch finished and I will share a couple now and then post the rest after I finish them up.  I will also be taking more sketches for the Detroit show.  So sometime next week expect a big art blog.  I was going to say dump but I thought I'd keep it classy.  Okay, so for some of you that are expecting sketches you might see it here, so- spoilers.

The Detroit Fanfare show is being held in Dearborn MI this year, so it's even closer to home.  Here's the website. 

Getting back to books that helped mold me into the artist I am now, I recommend Jack Prelutsky's Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep, illustrated by Arnold Lobel.  This was one of my favorite books in the Fletcher Elementary library.  I would check this book out whenever I could find it on the shelves.  I loved it! 

It was pretty much this book, the Garden of Abdul Asazi, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick and Jumanji.  Nightmares was my absolute favorite though, and I drew and redrew all the illustrations inside.  I even did a reading of The Dance of the Thirteen Skeletons for a 2nd grade class when I was in the 6th grade.  I was horrible, my stage fright didn't slacken even in front of a bunch of 8 year olds (that's right, right? 2nd grade-8 yrs).  I read a couple of the poems to Emily last night and I think a couple of puzzle pieces fell into place for her in regards to the fabric of my being.  :)

I had completely forgot about it for years and then I remembered the title of the piece I did for that classroom and so I googled it and found it online.  I finally broke down and bought a copy off of Amazon and it arrived yesterday.  Every turn of the page brought me back to elementary school and how I loved each illustration and the creepy poems that went with them.  While browsing online I discovered the duo of Prelutsky and Lobel had done a sequel The Headless Horseman Rides Tonight: More Poems to Trouble Your Sleep.  I will be getting that one shortly.  If you are a fan of Edward Gorey you will like these.